Kevin_Dick comments on Science Isn't Strict Enough - Less Wrong

13 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 May 2008 06:51AM

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Comment author: Kevin_Dick 16 May 2008 05:05:17PM 1 point [-]

Elizer. I've been a Believer for 20 years now, so I'm with you. But it seems like you're losing people a little bit on Bayes v Science. You've probably already thought of this, but it might make sense to take smaller pedagogical steps here to cover the inferential distance.

One candidate step I thought of was to first describe where Bayes can _supplement_ Science. You've already identified choosing which hypotheses to test. But it might help to list them all out. Off the top of my head, there's also obviously what to do in the face of conflicting experimental evidence, what to do when the experimental evidence is partially but not exactly on point, what to do when faced with weird (i.e., highly unexpected) experimental evidence, and how to allocate funds to different experiments (e.g., was funding the LHC rational?). I'm certain that you have even more in mind.

Then you can perhaps spiral out from these areas of supplementation to convince people of your larger point. Just a thought.